Experts Split on Possibility of Remains at Titanic Site

A boot on the seabed lies near what is thought to be a coat in this 2004 image. “There are people inside,” said James P. Delgado, who works for the agency that released the image. James Cameron, the moviemaker, said that in his 33 visits to the wreck, “I’ve seen zero human remains.”Credit
Institute for Exploration/Center for Ocean Exploration at the University of Rhode Island/NOAA Office of Exploration and Research

Federal officials, who have long struggled to assert protective authority over the resting place of the Titanic, say the site may harbor many undiscovered corpses and thus should be accorded the respect of a graveyard and shielded from looters and artifact hunters.

His agency, an arm of the Commerce Department, has released to the news media an image from 2004 that shows a boot on the seabed near what the agency calls a coat. “The articulation of the coat and boots are highly suggestive of someone coming to rest here,” Mr. Delgado said by e-mail. “This is the first full release of the whole image and the first explicit captioning.”

The bold federal assertions are dividing Titanic experts. The most experienced divers say they doubt that bodies lie intact in unexplored compartments of the deteriorating ship.

“We’ve seen clothing,” he added. “We’ve seen shoes. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains.”

Right now, of course, is an excellent time for federal officials to press their concerns and make their case for new protections.

Sunday is the centenary of the sinking, and — not coincidentally — Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, has introduced a bill that would give the Commerce Department new supervisory powers to protect the Titanic wreck site from salvagers and intrusive research.

The fight for protection began shortly after the Titanic was found in 1985 more than two miles down at the bottom of the North Atlantic, upright but split in two. The international waters ensured a long struggle over legal jurisdiction — even as salvagers made off with thousands of artifacts.

In 1986, Congress passed a protective law known as the R.M.S. Titanic Memorial Act, but officials at the ocean agency and elsewhere agree that it has no teeth. In 2004, the United States, France, Canada and Britain signed a draft treaty for better safeguards. But it has never been approved because it requires legislative support — which the Kerry bill would provide.

While seeking to enhance their custodial role, federal officials are now pressing the question of the missing dead. After the Titanic sank, searchers recovered 340 bodies. Thus, of the roughly 1,500 people killed in the disaster, about 1,160 bodies remain lost.

In an interview, Dr. Delgado of the ocean agency said the muddy seabed showed “clear signs” of human imprint. “Yes, you don’t see much in the way of bone,” he said, referring to the newly released photograph. “But this is clearly where someone came to rest on the bottom. It speaks powerfully to it being a grave site.”

Paul H. Nargeolet, a French mini-sub pilot who has visited the Titanic 30 times — the second-most experienced diver, after Mr. Cameron — said he had never seen any human remains.

Skeptics say that federal officials are exaggerating scanty evidence in an effort to expand their powers.

“It’s a legal tactic,” said David G. Concannon, a maritime lawyer who has dived to the Titanic’s resting place and advised the Explorers Club. “The opponents of salvage want to equate it to a grave site.”

But Mr. Delgado of NOAA defended his agency, saying: “We’re not pushing for bureaucratic turf. We’re pushing for international cooperation to protect the wreck.”

Scholars say most of the people who died were probably in life jackets and swept far to sea by wind and waves. After the sinking, a storm blew up that was reported to have scattered bobbing corpses in a line 50 miles long.

But some Titanic historians argue that as many as hundreds of people were trapped inside the sinking ship.

In the deep sea, a main factor that governs decomposition is the amount of oxygen dissolved in the surrounding seawater. When plentiful, oxygen supports the respiration of deep-sea scavengers. Currents that crisscross the global deep constantly deliver fresh oxygen that can energize armies of worms, fish and other organisms that display voracious appetites.

Leather is typically unaffected. Archaeologists have found intact sandals in ancient shipwrecks.

Decomposition slows if bodies get cut off from the open sea, reducing oxygen levels and scavengers. The interiors of old wrecks have thus yielded bones, teeth and sometimes whole bodies.

“It’s totally dependent on where they were,” said Tom Dettweiler, a veteran sea explorer who helped find the Titanic’s resting place. “In modern wrecks, you can get microenvironments that preserve bodies.”

For the Titanic, the oxygen factor means scavengers long ago feasted on nearby corpses. But — in theory, at least — bodies in undamaged areas of the hull would be less vulnerable if sealed off from currents and oxygen.

In 1987, two years after the Titanic’s discovery, deep sea explorers began gathering artifacts and tiptoeing around the body issue.

One expedition found what appeared to be a wedding band and part of a human finger while probing a debris field, according to a new book, “Farewell, Titanic.” It says the explorers quickly decided to rebury the grim find and declare the area off limits.

In 2000, amid an escalating legal war with artifact hunters, the ocean agency issued draft guidelines for the site’s preservation. Of the disaster’s 1,500 victims, the paper asserted, “many of those were trapped in the ship’s hull.” It cited no evidence.

Today the ocean agency is more specific. Its Web site says inner areas of the hull “may not be exposed” to the surrounding environment and thus have low oxygen levels, a state known as anoxia.

Isolated environments, it says, “create a condition of stasis where constant pressure, low temperatures, no flow, and anoxic water levels have been known to preserve organic matter for centuries.”

In the interview, Mr. Cameron dismissed the idea. Ocean currents, he said, “blow through the ship like a drafty house with all the windows open.” He called preserved bodies “highly conjectural” and “not based on the data.”

Visibly miffed, Mr. Cameron added that no federal official “has ever called me up and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you make all your hundreds of hours of interior survey available to us so we can actually have an informed opinion?’ ” Despite his reservations about the federal assertions, he noted that he was still in favor of the site’s preservation.

Other Titanic experts — including Robert D. Ballard, a discoverer of the wreck who has long advocated its protection — echo federal officials and call it possible and perhaps likely that human remains lie intact in unexplored compartments.

“I would not be surprised if highly preserved bodies were found in the engine room,” he said. “That was deep inside the ship.”

Asked how many bodies the broken hull of the Titanic might hold, Dr. Ballard replied: “Dozens. Hundreds starts to feel uncomfortable. I know that lots landed on the bottom, because there are so many shoes.”

A version of this article appears in print on April 15, 2012, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Experts Split On Possibility Of Remains At Titanic Site. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe